Comms Dealer

Red Box Recorders, the global provider of voice and data recording solutions, has appointed Obi Meka as Pre Sales Engineer.

Based in Dubai, he will be responsible for providing local support to a network of resellers as part of Red Box's expansion plans within the Middle East region.
 
Lee Jones, CEO of Red Box Recorders commented: "We are committed to expanding our presence in the Middle East, Asia Pacific and North America as part of our ongoing growth strategy. Therefore, we are looking to boost our sales and technical resources in these regions to enhance the service and support we can provide to resellers and customers."

Spectralink has renamed its DECT product line from Kirk to the Spectralink 7000 portfolio, aligning the suite with the firm's wider portfolio including the Spectralink 6000 (900 MHz), and 8000 (Wi-Fi) Portfolios, which will also have minor product name changes to maintain consistency.
 
"In order to grow the company at the pace we have in mind, we decided we needed one unitary brand to build awareness. This will support our ambitious plans for expansion and diversification over the coming years," said Sten Dyrmose, CEO at Spectralink.
 
"Our decision was backed up by feedback from customers and market research, which reassured us that this move will simplify the buying process and further build customer loyalty."

Cloud technology provider Ultra Communications has formed a partnership with charitable organisation, The Volunteer Call Centre (VCC), set up to enable people with travel difficulties, disabilities or lack of skills to get trained with the professional skills required to work within the customer service arena.

The VCC business objective is to provide free training to disadvantaged individuals and then progress them into full-time employment within 6 months.

VCC Operations Manager, Jade Smith, commented: "Our model means that we are up to 70% less expensive than traditional UK or off-shore outsource companies, offering UK based people access to employment opportunities that they may not have traditionally been considered for."

Kaspersky Lab has announced it will open a new office in London this year to better position its business in the UK and European market. The company has also announced a few changes to its management, it says.

Malcolm Tuck, a UK Managing Director, has been appointed as its new Director of Strategic Alliance for Europe and will be responsible for partnerships with SIs, outsources and European partners. He will report to European Managing Director, Alexander Moiseev, the company says.
Tuck's position of the UK Managing Director will now go to Kirill Slavin who joined the company this month. Prior to this, he held senior global positions at large organisations such as PepsiCo, Deloitte & Touche and Rinaco Plus.

The new London office is expected to accommodate around 100 UK employees, as well as UK-based European and global functions.
It is planned that the UK sales and marketing teams will be the first to move, followed by other teams over the next two years.

"UK growth and increased presence is a key focus for the business. The move to make the UK operation more prominent is testament to the importance the company places on the UK and European markets. Over the course of the two-year relocation period, we will fully support our employees through the adjustment and are confident that at the same time, current business will remain unaffected. We are confident that having UK, European and global functions in one dynamic new office will aid synergy and integration across the business, resulting in an all-round better customer experience," comments Moiseev.

Ericsson is planning to invest approximately SEK7bn (€1.03bn) in the coming five years to build three global ICT Centres. Two will be located in Sweden, in Stockholm and Linköping, while the third one, in North America, will be located in Canada, in Montreal, Quebec.

The centres will be located close to Ericsson's main R&D hubs and will be the new platform for more than 24,000 Ericsson R&D engineers around the world, supporting their "lean and agile" ways of working. 

Ericsson's customers will also be able to connect remotely for interoperability testing, trials and will have early access to innovation on new business services in real-time from the comfort of their locations, it says.

The three centres combined will be up to 120,000 square meters, approximately the size of 14 football fields. The new centres will house the company's complete portfolio, enabling the R&D organization to develop and verify solutions, creating the foundation for the next generation technology and cloud-based services, it says.

Hans Vestberg, President and CEO, Ericsson, says: "The new ICT Centres are examples of Ericsson's passion for driving the development of the industry. Great ideas come from collaboration, and at these centres we will push the boundaries of possibility on next generation technology and services. Flexibility enabled by new ways of working will realize innovation faster to the market and to our customers."

The centres will have a leading-edge design, he says, built in a modular and scalable way, securing an efficient use of resources and space adaptable to the business needs. Ericsson estimates that the combination of architecture, design and locations will reduce energy consumption up to 40%. This significant reduction in carbon footprint is instrumental in Ericsson's vision of a more sustainable future.

The two in Sweden will begin initial operations from end of 2013 and from end of 2014 respectively and the North American one from early 2015.

The new hardware design building in Stockholm, Sweden, will provide similar benefits as the global ICT Centres in use of equipment and energy savings. It will enable R&D hardware design activities in Stockholm to consolidate into one modern creative environment.

Ericsson has its biggest R&D hub located in Sweden with more than 9,000 employees. Other bigger R&D sites are in China, US, Canada and Hungary. 

ScanSource Communications has developed a new tool, ScanSource Designer, in an bid to enhance the configuration services offered to its reseller partners.

The new tool builds on the services provided by the Avaya IP Office Designer tool, which was also developed by ScanSource and has been well-received by resellers for its user-friendly functionalities.

Through ScanSource Designer, resellers are able to save time creating quotes, obtain pricing faster and help their partners that may not have experience configuring solutions.

The new tool provides improved functionality, including the addition of Avaya Server Edition and the new Avaya Price Model (APM). The tool is also able to export to Avaya EC format, which helps to solve compatibility issues.

ScanSource Designer offers improved integration with Avaya offerings, including networking solutions, IP Office Support Services (IPOSS) and Radvision video.

The tool is capable of multi-site configurations and will soon be available in French, in addition to German and English. While the tool was initially designed for Avaya solutions, ScanSource is planning to add more of its industry-leading manufacturer partners.

"ScanSource Designer is a comprehensive configuration tool that helps our partners quickly and easily configure solutions for their end-user customers, even if they don't have extensive knowledge of the features and benefits of the solution," said Rudy De Meirsman, managing director, ScanSource Communications, Europe.

"We have received very positive feedback from our partners about the tool and look forward to adding additional solutions from our vendor partners."

Microsoft has snapped up Nokia's devices and services business for 3.79 billion euro, and will pay 1.65 billion euro to license Nokia's patents for a total transaction price of 5.44 billion euro in cash. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive officer, said: "It's a bold step into the future, a win-win for employees, shareholders and consumers of both companies."

Building on the partnership with Nokia announced in February 2011 and the increasing success of Nokia's Lumia smartphones, Microsoft aims to accelerate the growth of its share and profit in mobile devices through faster innovation, increased synergies, and unified branding and marketing.

For Nokia, this transaction is expected to be significantly accretive to earnings, strengthen its financial position, and provide a solid basis for future investment in its continuing businesses.

Ballmer added: "Bringing these great teams together will accelerate Microsoft's share and profits in phones, and strengthen the overall opportunities for both Microsoft and our partners across our entire family of devices and services.

"In addition to its innovation and strength in phones at all price points, Nokia brings proven capability and talent in critical areas such as hardware design and engineering, supply chain and manufacturing management, and hardware sales, marketing and distribution.

"With ongoing share growth and the synergies across marketing, branding and advertising, we expect this acquisition to be accretive to our adjusted earnings per share starting in FY15, and we see significant long-term revenue and profit opportunities for our shareholders."

Risto Siilasmaa, Chairman of the Nokia Board of Directors and, following today's announcement, Nokia Interim CEO. "After a thorough assessment of how to maximize shareholder value, including consideration of a variety of alternatives, we believe this transaction is the best path forward for Nokia and its shareholders. Additionally, the deal offers future opportunities for many Nokia employees as part of a company with the strategy, financial resources and determination to succeed in the mobile space.

Stephen Elop, who following the acquisition is stepping aside as Nokia President and CEO to become Nokia Executive Vice President of Devices & Services, added: "Building on our successful partnership, we can now bring together the best of Microsoft's software engineering with the best of Nokia's product engineering, design, and global sales, marketing and manufacturing."

Chris Millington, UK & Ireland MD at Doro, gave an early reaction to the news: "My first reaction is wow -the mobile industry is capable of such incredible change. While this news is not a surprise, it does mean that Microsoft will now have the platform to deliver its mobile strategy.

"For business users specifically, this really does signal a significant opportunity, especially for Nokia's smartphone offering. However, does it mean the end of Nokia's feature phone business? Will future product development and focus now shift to Microsoft-only smart devices?"

Microsoft will draw upon its overseas cash resources to fund the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, subject to approval by Nokia's shareholders, regulatory approvals and other closing conditions.

Vodafone Group has agreed to sell its 45% stake in Verizon Wireless for $130 billion (£84bn), said to be one the largest business transactions in history. Strong speculation that a deal would be struck this afternoon prompted Vodafone's shares to rise more than 4% today.

According to reports Vodafone Chief Exec' Vittorio Colao is to return more than half of the sale price to shareholders.

Commenting earlier today on Vodafone's likely sale of its stake in Verizon, Victor Basta, MD of Magister Advisors, M&A advisors to the technology industry, said: "Vodafone looks set to successfully emerge from this strategic cocoon with a $130 billion butterfly. It is the culmination of a brilliant strategy of building up leading positions in key international markets, to the evident delight of shareholders.

"The risk for Vodafone is that outside of that cocoon the predatory competitor set has changed beyond recognition. The trend for consumers to shop, play, interact, and most importantly spend via their devices has made it imperative for mobile operators to metamorphose from operators into service providers.

"The biggest question for Vodafone today is what's next? Vodafone's DNA, and indeed where it has created most value, has been in its role as a savvy operator across markets. This creates a risk that Vodafone will become the largest 'digital drug mule' in the world, carrying other vendors' valuable content for a fraction of the upside. Vodafone must evolve, and quickly."

Adrian Barnard, Managing Director of Modern Communications, added: "Huge congratulations are due to the Vodafone board for securing £84 billion from Verizon. Vodafone can now invest in Britain, the EU and emerging markets. With this much cash to invest 4G services will develop quicker than originally anticipated and Vodafone could once again become the biggest UK provider.

"Today's deal frees up much needed cash as at a time that the company is investing billions upgrading its network to deliver next generation services."

Sennheiser has launched three new marketing campaigns for its channel resellers to use for promotion of Sennheiser headsets to businesses and call centres.

For each of the three campaign themes Sennheiser channel resellers will have access to a range of marketing collateral including co-brandable advertisements, e-shot templates, animated online banners and e-mail signatures.

The 'Inspiring Award-Winning Performances' campaign emphasises brand awareness. 'Giving you the Freedom to Perform' promotes the productivity benefits of wireless headsets and advantages of Sennheiser's premium wireless DW series. 'Unleash Your UC Potential' can be used to promote Sennheiser's products optimised for Unified Communications including the newly launch Bluetooth headset Presence and Sennheiser's premium wired Circle and Culture series with leading HD voice clarity, noise cancelling microphones and patented ActivegardTM hearing protection.

Charlotte Gaskin, Channel Marketing Manager for Sennheiser UK Telecoms, stated: "These are three areas where Sennheiser has a strong advantage in the headset market allowing our channel community to promote the USPs of the Sennheiser brand and products to their customers."

Fast-growing cloud and colocation firm UKFast has appointed Mark Walker to lead the company's move into the public sector with the introduction of cloud range, FlexPod.

Walker joins the team having worked as regional sales manager at both cloud firm ANS and IT firm Proact, bringing years of experience in storage solutions and the cloud range FlexPod.

Walker brings FlexPod to UKFast for the first time, expanding the firm's eCloud portfolio and cementing its place as the most dynamic player in the UK cloud market.

Lawrence Jones, CEO of UKFast, said: "The tremendous success of our eCloud range and our involvement in G-Cloud have meant UKFast has surpassed expectations and 2013 is set to be an incredibly good year.

"Now we've brought Mark in to add even more to our cloud portfolio - it is a really exciting time for UKFast.

"With this appointment we are able to offer the public sector the opportunity to move away from their traditional risky in-house data centres into secure, resilient and modern facilities to experience how the internet should be."

Walker said: "It's brilliant to be part of a technology firm that focuses on service as well as technology."

UKFast will be offering FlexPod - a cloud range developed by a conglomerate of three tech heavyweights, Cisco, NetApp and VMware, to optimise performance of data centre storage - alongside its current eCloud range, colocation and dedicated portfolio.